The government of President Evo Morales approved a decree Monday requiring U.S. citizens to obtain visas to enter Bolivia. Morales said the decree "a matter of reciprocity." The U.S. government requires Bolivians to obtain visas to enter the United States. "We are a small country but we have the same dignity as any other," Morales said. The decree, approved during a Cabinet meeting, applies to other countries, including Serbia and Montenegro and Cyprus. In February 2006, Leonilda Zurita, a congresswoman belonging to Morales' Movement Toward Socialism party, had her U.S. visa revoked. Zurita said Washington cited an alleged link between her and terrorist activities, which she denied. Morales also cited security concerns for the rule. An American man has been charged with setting off bombs in two La Paz hotels in March. Two Bolivians were killed and seven people were injured, including an American woman. ... http://abcnews.go.com

When Eric Douilhet opened China's first Paul Smith and Moschino fashion boutiques in 2002, he didn't expect they'd be making money by now. He didn't think they'd be losing this much, either. ``I was definitely expecting sales to be higher, the losses to be smaller,'' says Douilhet, 43, president of Bluebell (Asia) Ltd., which also operates Jaeger clothing and Davidoff cigar stores in China. ``People are too optimistic about China.'' He declined to quantify the losses. China's luxury market is proving harder to crack than many overseas companies anticipated, even as incomes soar and economic growth tops 10 percent. Dozens of high-end brands, from Cartier and Chanel to Hermes and Versace, are chasing the nation's limited pool of big spenders. That's made profits elusive for most. ``If you are not the No. 1 brand, if you are No. 2 or No. 3, the odds are good your fingers will be burned,'' ...http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aupIyn7Is0lU&refer=exclusive

Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airlines employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O’Hare Airport last fall. The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn’t have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, according to a report in Monday’s Chicago Tribune. The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that a United supervisor had called the control tower at O’Hare, asking if anyone had spotted a spinning disc-shaped object. But the controllers didn’t see anything, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said. Just weather? “Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon,” Cory said. “That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low (cloud) ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things.” ...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16431613/

Two men stand working in the afternoon sun just yards from the US-Mexico border. Clad in hard hats and work shirts, tool belts slung around their waists, they have been toiling at this spot in the Arizona desert since early October. One holds an iron stanchion while the other bolts a horizontal bar to it. But before the joint can be tightened, the whole structure starts to sway. A shout goes up: "Watch out!" The five metre pole lurches toward the dry red earth, bringing its neighbour down with it. The latest weapon in the fight against undocumented migrants looks a little shaky. The iron and steel fence is the latest project from the Minutemen, the volunteer group of anti-immigration activists that has placed itself at the sharp end of the immigration debate since launching a highly publicised series of border watches in 2005. Now, frustrated at what the group sees as the inaction of government, it has taken matters a step further, building its own border fence at a cost of around $1m...http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1981095,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

Asian companies may face Internet disruptions in the first trading day of the year as carriers rush to fix submarine cables severed by a 7.1-magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks off southern Taiwan. Trading and online banking services may be slow because of traffic congestion as Asian markets including Hong Kong and South Korea resume operations after the New Year holidays. Cable operators such as Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. and Hong Kong's PCCW Ltd. are using backup fiber-optic links and satellite systems to reroute Internet access. Businesses that rely on electronic communications between the region and North America, such as trading companies, banks and stock brokerages, may suffer the most if repair work drags. Work on one cable was delayed by a week because of engine trouble on one of the repair boats and bad weather. `Internet users visiting overseas Web sites may experience slow response or congestion'' ...http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aippAH0pG8w8&refer=exclusive

Daya Rakha, 36, was born in the jungles of the Gir wildlife sanctuary in western India and knows little else except how to live off the forest's resources. Just as his ancestors did generations ago, Daya ekes out a meager living mainly by tending to his cattle which relentlessly graze in Gir's lush forests. But Daya — like millions of India's forest dwellers — has never been able to call the forest his home. Instead he has been treated as a criminal by authorities as he has no legal right to stay in the forests where his forefathers lived and died. "It is the eviction notices from the government and rules made to uproot us by the forest officials that give us sleepless nights," said Daya, who belongs to the 8,400-strong Maldhari tribe of Gir. Over 40 million of India's most impoverished and marginalized people live in the country's forests — including tiger reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and national parks — but for years have been neglected by ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2764219